Teachers share unique Thanksgiving traditions

While students travel across the world or eat turkey with their family, teachers also have unique ways of celebrating Thanksgiving: from taking an annual trip to Disneyland to hosting an “orphan Thanksgiving.”

For English teacher Rosalie Chung, Thanksgiving is a time to catch up with her friends and family and enjoy a big meal. Unlike traditional turkey dinners, Chung celebrates with a Chinese-American fusion meal.

“When I lived with my parents in New York, we would invite lots of family friends and relatives to have a large dinner,” Chung said. “Usually, we would have honeyed ham and maybe turkey with stuffing, but the rest of the dishes were more Chinese in nature. Afterwards, we would discuss what we were thankful for in the past year.”

Likewise, choir teacher Andrew Ford spends Thanksgiving with his family. As soon as Thanksgiving break starts, he and his family travel to Disneyland on Wednesday. They then spend Thursday, Friday and Saturday at the park and come home on Sunday. This tradition began 10 years ago after the large Thanksgiving dinner with his extended family became more difficult to do since family members began getting married and having children.

Ford said that they eat Thanksgiving dinner at Big Thunder Ranch Barbeque. However, this part of the tradition will end after this year because the restaurant is closing to make room for the new Star Wars Land.

“It’s the one time of the year for three days that we all get to be together,” Ford said. “We don’t have to worry about who’s got rehearsal or who’s got work, it’s just three days of being a family at Disneyland.”

English teacher Suzanne Herzman also has a tradition that she always looks forward to celebrate. Herzman and her close friends created an original tradition called “orphan Thanksgiving.” She calls it an “orphan Thanksgiving” because it started with spending time with people who did not have a place to go for Thanksgiving.

Herzman, who was born and raised in New York, said that when she moved to California in her 20s, she never really went back home for Thanksgiving. She has celebrated all of her Thanksgivings with her close friends since moving to California.

“If there’s snow, we do [Thanksgiving] at Kirkwood [Ski Resort]; if there’s not, we do it at San Francisco or Santa Cruz at one of our homes,” Herzman said.